In the lasting debate over Thomas Piketty’s book on outsized returns on capital, a significant fact has been obscured: If you exclude land and housing, capital has not risen as a share of the U.S. economy. In responding to inequality, policy makers should recognize the difference between wealth, which includes land, and productive capital, which doesn’t.

Stock buybacks, which along with dividends eat up sums of money equal to almost all the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s earnings, vaulted to a record in February, with chief executive officers announcing $104.3 billion in planned repurchases. That’s the most since TrimTabs Investment Research began tracking the data in 1995 and almost twice the $55 billion bought a year earlier.

When looking out a window, it is easy to be fooled by your own reflection and see more of yourself than the outside world. This seems to be the case when US observers, influenced by their own country’s fiscal debate, look at Greece.

Some merchants are using fake orders to boost their standing on Alibaba’s websites, a practice that puts the Chinese e-commerce giant at risk of further regulatory scrutiny in the wake of its $25 billion initial public offering.